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The Many Lies of Megyn Kelly [1]

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Date: 2024-10-27  

When I say “lies of Megyn Kelly”, I don’t mean that Kelly, herself, is intentionally making false claims. I’m referring to the lies she presented on Real Time with Bill Maher on Friday 25 October 2024. I don’t pretend to know Kelly’s intent, because she could be ignorant that these are false. They could be lies someone else told her, and she is just passing on because she believes them to be the truth. So, let’s be clear: I don’t know that she, herself, is a liar. But what she presented to the public is a bunch of lies and distortions.

Still harmful. But it’s not the fact that she lied to the public that’s of interest, so much as what it tells us about the thinking on the political right. Understanding this can be very useful in moving public opinion in the right direction.

So, it’s what she lies about, and how, that are revealing.

Note: This article is very long. I know I’m asking a lot of you. So, if, now and then, you want to take a break, get a cup or glass of some beverage, even take a walk, and then come back, no problem. It’s just that I was incredibly offended by this interview, and I’m not holding back.

The Right Wing Mindset

OK. So what was revealing? For example, when Maher confronted her with the fact that Donald Trump is a fascist, she fobbed it off:

Kelly: I don’t care about that at all. Not at all. Maher: Because…? Kelly: January 6th was not good… Maher: Wait. Why don’t you care about that at all? Kelly: Because they’ve been saying that about Trump for years. They’ve been saying that about Republican candidates for years. … They’ve been doing this for every Republican. They get to Trump, and we no longer are listening to them.

Republicans can’t properly evaluate Trump because they are so used to not listening to their opponents that they automatically disbelieve everything Democrats say. Even with the evidence staring them in the face, they still can’t see it. They literally can’t perceive reality.

They can’t independently think for themselves. They can’t look at Donald Trump launching a literal coup and understand that this is a fascist action. They don’t see a violent attack against the Capitol with the intention of stopping democracy in its tracks as horrifically serious. To Kelly, “January 6th was not good”.

Election Denial

Kelly discounts everything about Donald Trump. She discounts his election denials by saying Democrats are deniers, too.

Kelly: Don’t think there won’t be denialism if Kamala Harris loses, too. Maher: It won’t be the same. Kelly: OK. But there’s going to be. I mean, they’re already laying the foundation for lawfare. … Maher: Well, there’s no evidence of that. Democrats have never done that. They’ve conceded. Kelly: We’ve already had this fight on my show. Hillary Clinton is the original election denier.… Maher: She’s not an election denier. Kelly: Yes, she is. Maher: It’s different. Come on, man. It’s the difference between grumbling. And yes, they grumble, and they shouldn’t, and maybe it goes over the line. It’s the difference between grumbling about something and actually trying to overturn it, like he did. I mean, you know this. Why do we have to go through this? Kelly: You’re allowed to file legal challenges in response to an election, which is what Trump did, and he lost, and he did wind up leaving office. I’m not going to defend his behavior on January 6th, I never have, and I’m not going to start tonight, but if you don’t think there’s a difference between denialism on the Dem’s side, you haven’t been paying attention to what’s happening on that side for these years.

What she’s saying is that it’s okay for Trump to deny the election because Hillary Clinton started it. There’s no equivalence here. In 2016, there were credible reports of Republican cheating. In fact, Republicans have been using caging and other voter suppression tactics for years. If they had been following the law, it is possible that she might have won. But here’s the crucial difference. She didn’t launch an insurrection to try to overturn the results.

The term “lawfare” is telling, as well. Kelly says Democrats are misusing the courts. No, emphatically, we are not. We are defending in the courts the actual votes as they have been made by registered and legitimate voters.

What Trump does by using court cases to delay justice is lawfare. What Democrats are doing by defending the rights of U.S. citizens to vote is not.

This is a sign of how much our opponents feel like the system is unfair. They only feel that way because they aren’t getting their way. This is the feeling of the two-year-old: it’s unfair that he can’t have ice cream. Never mind he’s already had it once today. He wants two servings. Since he’s not getting his way, “life is unfair”.

Also, Trump did not “wind up leaving office.” He used fraud and violence to try to stay in office, and it’s only because he failed at those that he had to pack his bags and go. So, yeah, January 6th was not good. It was an indicator of how much of a traitor to the country Donald Trump is.

Why Kelly Backs Trump

...despite all the reasons he’s disqualified.

Kelly gave two major reasons she’s backing Donald Trump in this election (despite the fact he’s a raging fascist). Immigration and gender affirming care.

First, immigration.

Kelly: Do you have any idea how many illegals we let in under Biden/Harris? Maher: OK. So that’s your issue? Kelly: That’s one of them. 10.4 million, at least. That’s what Customs and Border Patrol says. It’s probably more. That doesn’t count the got-aways. 10.4. You know how many it was under Trump? 2.3. Maher: But, that’s more important than democracy and … Kelly: That is democracy. Maher: No, it’s not. Kelly: What is America if we let in another 20 million illegals, who come in to your community, who overrun your town, who endanger you, who take up social service money so that your community center closes, so that you can’t pay for basic services for your town…

Megyn Kelly knows or should know that these figures are just plain wrong. According to USA Facts, which uses figures from The Office of Homeland Security Statistics (OHSS), the total number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. is around 11 million. And about 8.7 million of them arrived before 2010.

That means that no more than 2.3 million have arrived since the early part of the Obama Administration. And the total number appears to have declined since 2018.

Kelly accused the Biden Administration of releasing illegal immigrants into the country, but in doing so, they are following the law. The Republicans have had ample opportunity to change that law. They, in fact, were given carte blanc to make whatever changes they wanted earlier this year and turned that down in favor of having a (bogus) talking point in the campaign.

I don’t know what Customs and Border Patrol is saying, but they are part of Office of Homeland Security, so they should know the numbers OHSS has.

But the fundamental lie here is that the Biden Administration—or anyone else—let “illegal immigrants” into the country. CPB follows the law. I encourage Kelly to go to Mexico, let’s say, and try to get into the U.S. without any proof she belongs here. My suspicion is that she will be apprehended and processed, just like anyone else.

Second, Transgender Care

Kelly’s other main complaint was about transgender care.

Kelly: …maybe as important [as the immigration issue], is what we are doing to our children with this trans insanity. I mean this is almost my single issue. We are chopping off the healthy body parts of young children without (audience interrupts with skepticism) oh, 100%, we are doing that. Maher: Well, we are definitely doing that. Kelly: Without any inquisition into what’s happening. Maher: ‘Cause that’s what it is. So, I don’t know what your ooing is about.

Here, Maher participated in sensationalizing this.

It’s clear the audience was not buying this accusation. This reminds me of Carly Fiorina’s widely debunked claim that Planned Parenthood was selling fetal tissue for profit.

Before I go on and present any more about this I want to make a couple things clear.

The number of cases where minors have any kind of gender affirming surgery is very limited. According to one study published by the the National Institutes of Health:

Of 522,605 pediatric patients included in NSQIP Pediatric [a database of all pediatric cases] from 2018 to 2021, 108 (0.02%) were TGNB [TransGender or Non-Binary] minors who underwent GAS [Gender Affirmation Surgery] and were included in our study. … The mean (SD) age was 16.9 (0.8) years, with the youngest patient being 13.9 years old. It is worth noting that only two (1.9%) patients were under the age of 15 (13.9 and 14.5 years).

Temporal Trends in Gender Affirmation Surgery Among Transgender and Non-Binary Minors, 25 September 2023.

In other words when Kelly says “children” she’s basically talking about teenagers. And most of the medical interventions consisted of hormone interventions.

What this suggests is that there’s no epidemic of transgender surgery or even medical intervention.

Also, here are the actual recommendations from The American Psychiatric Association. The APA:

1. Supports access to affirming and supportive treatment for trans and gender diverse youth and their families, including appropriate mental health services, and when indicated puberty suppression and medical transition support. 2. Opposes all legislative and other governmental attempts to limit access to these services for trans and gender diverse youth, or to sanction or criminalize the actions of physicians and other clinicians who provide them.

Official APA Position

In addition, they say that puberty blockers:

...can allow the adolescent a period of time, often several years, in which to further explore their gender identity and benefit from additional cognitive and emotional development. During this time, the youth and family can receive mental health and social support services, if needed, to navigate the gender affirmation process including the consideration of whether gender affirming hormone therapy is an appropriate next step. … For gender diverse youth and their families, decisions to which gender-affirming medical, surgical, social, and/or legal procedures to pursue are best managed via an informed consent approach.

Why is Megyn Kelly raising this issue when it’s, as Kamala Harris said, “a remote issue”?

I’ll give you my opinion. I think it’s because Republicans (and Trump in particular) are being hammered over the abortion issue. Democrats have been running really impactful campaign advertisements showing how abortion restriction laws have been killing women. Really effective ads, because when I see what happened to these women, I’m furious. And I expect other voters to be equally enraged.

So, Republicans have decided that transgender affirming care, because it’s a medical procedure that most people don’t want to contemplate, is a way of getting back at Democrats.

There’s just one glaring problem with this. Even Gender Affirmation Surgery, which is rare in teenagers, is consensual and takes place after a long period of medical examination. It’s exactly not what Donald Trump described:

You know, they take your kid. There are some places, your boy leaves for school, comes back a girl. Without parental consent. What’s that about?

Donald Trump Insists Trans Surgeries at School Are “Actually Happening.” They’re Not by Mathew Rodriguez, 22 October 2024.

Lying. That’s what it’s about. It’s about Donald Trump lying to the public.

Blocking people from getting abortions, that’s non-consensual. That’s interference in the private lives of citizens. Allowing them to get medical care they want and need, that’s consensual.

The Other Issues

This leaves two other issues that don’t seem to be decisive factors in Kelly’s voting assessment, but which are still pretty important.

Issue 1: The Economy

Maher: If Trump had this economy, and I could go through all the stats, the stock market is through the roof, wages are up… Kelly: Not as high as it was under Trump. Maher: Well, Trump inherited somebody else’s economy. Kelly: That’s what Barack Obama would like us to… Maher: Well, it’s true. Kelly: OK. Maher: Really? On day one, everything changed? Kelly: Just walk me through it. So, Trump has Obama to thank for his economy, but Biden can’t thank Trump for anything.

Yes, we can “thank” Donald Trump for the economy he left behind in 2021: A shambles decimated by the pandemic. That’s what President Biden got when he walked through the door. Inflation the first year of his term—due entirely to Republican mismanagement—was 9%. President Biden, with enormous help from Democrats in Congress (and no Republicans) and diligent work by the Federal Reserve, has gotten it down to around 2%.

As Maher says, there are stats.

Trump GDP Growth (first three years): $1.55 trillion Biden GDP Growth (first three years): $2.14 trillion

Source: The Balance.

This is in constant (2017) dollars. A half-trillion dollars better.

The stock market did rise more during the Trump Administration (the Dow rose about 50% vs about 35% under Biden). But even 35% is well ahead of inflation (about 19.3% during the Biden administration, vs. 7.7% during Trump’s). These inflation statistics largely shows the effect of the pandemic and astronomical Republican-led federal deficits.

As I point out here, Republicans under Donald Trump ran up almost $8 trillion in additional national debt.

That means, Republicans added around $23,284 per person to the national debt. New babies born today are that much poorer as a result of Republicans in office just those four years. And around $2 trillion of that debt was before Covid-19, just to give tax cuts primarily to their rich friends. (Note: Those tax cuts have gone away for most people.) The amount of borrowing under Democrats pales in comparison with Republican borrowing. Unless you got more than $23,000 in tax cuts, you lost money on the Republican economic plan.

So, no, the economy was not better under the Trump regime. He and his Republicans wrecked it, and we have been putting it back together for years. Which reinforces the typical pattern: Republicans wreck the economy, the Democrats fix it, then Republicans wreck it again.

Issue 2: Fascism

The second issue, one that Kelly steadfastly avoided as much as possible, is the dictatorship issue. Maher made a solid case that much of the world is lining up with Vladimir Putin and his attempt to take over Ukraine. Then, he put this to Kelly:

Maher: Somehow, the world seems to be dividing between the good guy countries, the democratic countries, and these autocracies. And, if your guy gets in, we’re going to be on the wrong side of this one. Kelly: ... I think we’ll go back to the time that we had when he was President. Which is the only time we didn’t start a war and get involved in a war.… Maher: That’s not true. Jimmy Carter never fired a shot. Kelly: Putin did not invade Ukraine until Biden took over. We had the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, which projected weakness through the world. People understood that we were enfeebled. And that is what is provocative. Weakness is provocative. Trump destabilized these people. They didn’t know what to expect of him. The next thing you know he’s bombing Soleimani. Trump did strategic strikes that had people on their heels. They didn’t know what he might do to them.… Maher: It’s what he might do to us that I’m a little more worried about.… Kelly: ...We’ve had four years of Trump. Maher: So what? Kelly: Trump did not go after his political enemies with the Department of Justice. That was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Maher: Well, we had Hitler in the Thirties and things were okay, and then we had Hitler in the Forties and they got way worse.… Kelly: He hid his Hitler in the first four years, and it’s going to come out in full force in the second four? Maher: Well, ...he tried to do dictatorial fascist things, and he was stopped. Kelly: Joe Biden has flouted the law when it comes to the student loan give away programs. Maher: Really? You’re talking about student loan programs? Kelly: Supreme Court opinions that told him he didn’t have the right to do it and he openly said we’ll get around the Supreme Court. He did it with respect to rent abatement programs. The same, exact thing. And then he and Kamala Harris unleashed this Department of Justice against their political enemy, Donald Trump. (Audience laughter.) Their one chief rival for the presidency. Maher: OK. Well, we’ll see. Kelly: Is it funny? Because they did it. You want to talk fascism, that’s fascist. Maher: I don’t think history is going to be kind to your point of view, but I appreciate you coming on and saying (it).

I quoted this at length because there are several points.

But just a short break for the truth. Here is the definition of fascism from Wikipedia:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

You can look at this and compare it with Kelly’s claims about Biden and Harris’s supposed fascism vs Donald Trump’s actual fascism.

Now, back to the story.

First of all, it’s false that “Putin did not invade Ukraine until Biden took over.” Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014 and took over Crimea and eastern provinces in Ukraine. And there’s no evidence that Russia wouldn’t have taken exactly the same actions in 2022 if Trump had remained in office, only probably with Trump’s blessing.

Second, it’s deceptive to hang a “disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan” on President Biden. Donald Trump negotiated a deal with the Taliban (which wasn’t the actual government of Afghanistan), then withdrew most of our forces from Afghanistan before President Biden even took office. Every bit of our withdrawal from Afghanistan was designed by Trump.

Not to mention that the invasion of Afghanistan was entirely an emotional response by a Republican President. We could have just used sufficient force to track down Osama bin Laden without taking over Afghanistan and staying 20 years. Messy as it was, our withdrawal from Afghanistan was overdue.

If there’s a criticism of this that might make sense, it is that we should have done a lot more to pull our allies out of Afghanistan before leaving and given them all asylum in the U.S. But I don’t see that criticism lodged by any of the Republicans.

Kelly claims this projected weakness. What actually projects weakness is random and inconsistent actions by Donald Trump, like killing Soleimani, which is only borderline legal. What message does it send to allies and foes alike if the President of the United States is irrational and unpredictable?

There’s also the lie that President Biden pursuing student loan forgiveness and rent abatement were somehow illegal and dictatorial. The Biden Administration made these efforts and when the Supreme Court denied them, President Biden didn’t just do them anyway. He looked for and pursued other means under different laws. This is an example of the President following the law and respecting the opinion of the Court (which he is under no constitutional requirement to do).

These are all major points about foreign policy. But they pale in comparison to the real failure here, her claim that “Trump did not go after his political enemies with the Department of Justice. That was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.”

That’s another lie. Donald Trump ordered his Justice Department to put Hillary Clinton on trial. And he used the DOJ to go after Michael Cohen.

So, no, it’s just not true that Trump didn’t go after his political enemies when he was in office. And it is not true that he didn’t try to be a dictator his first term. General John Kelly went down the definition of “fascist” from Wikipedia (see above) and told us that, by the standard definition, Donald Trump is a fascist.

Everyone in this country who believes in democracy is against fascism. But Megyn Kelly isn’t. She backs a fascist. If you’re not antifa, that makes you fa. Megyn Kelly is backing a fascist. That makes her a fascist, too.

Just like when Donald Trump first ran for the White House. He was a racist then. The entire birtherism shtick is racist. It isn’t about anyone’s place of birth. What Trump was saying back then (and every racist in the country heard him and stood up and saluted) was, “It doesn’t matter what you accomplish. You can even become President of the United States. But if you’re Black, we will never accept you.”

Kelly and her Republican friends backed that plainly racist candidate.

And despite all the evidence before her eyes, Kelly still backs this racist, misogynist, fascist, traitorous candidate, Little Dictator Donald Trump.

Silly Time

Now, as for Bill Maher, he is really good on many things. His rant about the world dividing into “the good guy countries, the democratic countries, and these autocracies” is right on point.

But his suggestion that Vice President Kamala Harris should have a Sister Souljah moment is a truly terrible idea.

I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton. And I’ll tell you exactly why. It was clear he was not prepared to defend core Democratic values. He wanted to triangulate. He wanted to work with Republicans. That’s how we got destructive policy like TANF and deregulation. You cannot work with Republicans because Republicans work against the best interests of the country. Occasionally, you can advance legislation that they will back but that doesn’t harm core Democratic principles. But that’s rare.

By not using his political talents to push back against right wing ideology, Bill Clinton weakened the position of the Democratic Party and the progressive movement for a generation or more. His Sister Souljah moment only confirmed what I already knew about him. I think, net, it lost him votes and it certainly lost him support with the progressive wing of the party, the wing that matters.

This was the attitude of the Democratic establishment right up through the Obama Administration. It was their errant belief that the progressives were the enemy as much as the Republicans. Obama brought on Rahm Emanuel, who famously stiff-armed progressives. When Hillary Clinton ran for the White House, she essentially told the progressive side of the party, “I don’t need you. I’ve got this.” She picked Tim Kaine for her running mate. In other words, “I don’t need you, and I don’t plan to listen to you.”

I did vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election, but I wasn’t in any way motivated to campaign for her. If she’d picked a progressive, I probably would have contributed time and money. And, I suspect that many progressives reacted the same way. “You got this? No problem. We wish you well.”

It would be truly stupid for Kamala Harris to seek out some opportunity to turn off her entire base of support in what is, at least in good part, a base-turn-out election.

She’s not listening to me. Her campaign isn’t listening to me. I’m not publishing this to get their attention or give them advice.

I’m just putting on the record for later reference that the idea she should try to tell the public she won’t listen to progressives is an idea utterly devoid of value, and very likely damaging.

It’s never possible to know. But Joe Biden did win his election. You might note that he never tries to tell progressives to get lost. He has the correct attitude that he’ll listen to anyone. Which is, so far, the position I’m getting from Kamala Harris: I will listen.

Which is why I’m not concerned that she’s working with (former) Republicans to get elected. I’m not worried that she changed her views on fracking or on immigration. What she didn’t do is say that the people who oppose fracking or the people who favor a more lenient immigration policy are wrong and she won’t listen to them.

So, let’s not have any infighting, which is (boiled down) what Bill Maher’s suggestion comes down to. Let’s keep our fight focused on the fascist at hand and defeat him.

And As for Kelly

I don’t want to see her on my TV screen again unless and until she’s there to make an abject apology to the American people and sincerely ask for forgiveness.

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